WORKSHOP
SUMMARY
Background:
Following up on the agreements reached at the US-Brazil Commercial Dialogue
between Secretary Gutierrez and Minister Furlan held in Brazil on June
6, 2006, and the US-Brazil Ministerial Joint Commission Meeting held in
Washington DC on July 21, 2006, the two sides agreed to explore cooperation
in Metrology and Standards for Biofuels.
As a first step, a workshop on “Measurements and Standards for Biofuels:
Enabling a Transition from Petroleum as a Vehicular Energy Source”, organized
by NIST and INMETRO (National Institute of Metrology, Standardization
and Industrial Quality of Brazil), was held on September 14-15, 2006 in
Rio de Janeiro. The participants represented government and private sector
organizations from Brazil and the U.S.
Ideas Discussed:
The workshop focused on measurement and standards issues with regard to
the production, distribution, and quality (calorific value, anti-corrosiveness
etc.) of biofuels. The Brazilians shared experiences and raised measurement
and standards issues that pose technical challenges to the shift from
petroleum to biofuels. Technical areas for NIST-INMETRO cooperation identified
at the workshop included:
- Review of inconsistencies
between ABTM (Brazilian), ASTM (US), EN (European) and ISO (international)
documentary standards, both in terms of specifications and measurement
conditions;
- Definition of
relevant measurands for determining fuel quality and their impact on
materials performance;
- Development of
new performance based measurement methods;
- Development of
new Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) to assure the accuracy of measurements
used to characterize biofuels;
Action Plan:
The following areas were highlighted as topics for future discussion:
- Review of specifications
for biofuels as commodity products;
- Identification
of new Reference Methods and CRMs to improve measurement reliability;
- Critical evaluation
of field methods for assessing fuel quality at the production site;
- Review of available
thermophysical property data relevant to processing and characterization
of biofuels;
- Impact of biofuels
on corrosion properties of materials.
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